Despite its notable successes, the public education system fails many students, as evidenced by the disengagement, failure and high dropout rates for Black, Aboriginal, and other minority youths. African-Canadian parents and communities are continually being asked to take responsibility for solving the many problems affecting them; however, the…

The Institute for Research and Reform in Education (IRRE) is dedicated to helping schools raise the academic performance of all students to levels required for postsecondary education and high-quality employment. To accomplish this, IRRE developed First Things First (FTF), a reform framework grounded in research about how young people develop and…

The first four chapters ("Progressive Education,""The Impact of Progressive Education,""The Remedies: Focusing on the Wrong Problems," and "Progressive Education Challenged") examine the deleterious effect that progressive education has had on student achievement and on society as a whole. The last five…

The authors discuss the development of a diagnostic-prescriptive teaching and learning program in the Youngstown public school system; give background material; describe organizational form and implementation; and conclude with a series of "points to ponder" for educators contemplating a similar venture. (MB)

Cognitive and academic behaviors promoted by an ongoing, long-term Direct Instruction preschool project for poverty level children (N=109) are described. Children who received two years of training achieved at substantially higher normative levels than children trained for only one year and this advantage continued in first and second grades.…

This paper reports on the outcomes of the first in a series of three systematic literature reviews in inclusive education. The aims include establishing what research has been undertaken in the area of effective pedagogical approaches to enable children with special educational needs to be included in mainstream classrooms, synthesising themes in…

State leaders in business, labor, public policy, education and community development are invited to come together around multiple pathways and build a new agenda for high school improvement in California. This group can become a powerful force for transforming high school education by examining and forming consensus around the multiple pathways…

This paper discusses homework policy as a product of 50 years of experimental research. Part 1 discusses homework guidelines in grades 3 through 8 by suggesting that homework should be assigned, graded, and individualized. In addition, homework should provide feedback about student achievement that includes parental monitoring. Part 2 recommends…

Compared were the effectiveness of individualized instruction in a mainstreamed open classroom setting and instruction in a traditional classroom setting on the achievement levels of 56 low ability students (grades 1-6). Two groups of Ss, paired for grade level and IQ, were tested after 1, 2, and 3 years of exposure to the models. There was no…

Purpose: This annotated bibliography is focused intentionally on postsecondary peer cooperative learning programs that increasing student achievement. Peer learning has been popular in education for decades. As both a pedagogy and learning strategy, it has been frequently adapted for a wide range of academic content areas at the elementary,…

Examines the role of theory in gifted education and argues that the most important educational value should be child-centeredness, with theories serving as ways to understand the gifted child's perspective. However, many theories are seen as focusing overly much on achievement to the detriment of the child's inner life and emotional well-being.…

"Count Us in: Achieving Success for Deaf Pupils" is a timely report. It comes when schools are becoming more confident in dealing with a wide range of additional support for learning needs. Schools are also more aware that they need to personalise experiences in order to meet pupils' learning needs. The report does point to strengths…

A performance objective is a description of an observable task to be performed by a learner to demonstrate that he has learned something. Performance goals stated clearly in terms of observable student performance can be used to improve educational methods. Because it is relatively difficult to construct indirect objectives that will…

Follow Through is a large compensatory education program that operated in scores of communities across the United States throughout the seventies. This study was conducted in an attempt to obtain a more definitive answer to whether different educational approaches actually lead to different achievement outcomes. (Authors/JN)

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY WAS CONDUCTED TO COMPARE THE ACHIEVEMENT LEVELS OF BRITISH AND UNITED STATES ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN GRADES 1-6, OF VARYING ABILITY LEVELS, FROM BOTH PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS AT THE APPROXIMATE BEGINNING, MIDDLE, AND END OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR. ACHIEVEMENT ANALYSES WERE BASED PRIMARILY UPON SCORES EARNED ON THE…